Setting the Stage, Campaigns for D&D and Other RPGs

Josh tells us about his world, The Collide. Josh is a new DM and player, providing a unique perspective on what D&D is like from that fresh point of view. The Collide is a combination of two worlds that smashed together in a cataclysmic event several hundred years ago. Collide is single continent split in half by a large mountain range. The western half is the original half with green plants....

Maura tells us about her campaign, Her Dark Ministrations , which uses the Spire rules and setting made by Rowan, Rook and Decard. Maura's campaign and version of Spire follow the base setting pretty closely. From the game's website, "Spire is a roleplaying game about desperate revolutionary dark elves caught up in a secret war against the high elves, or aelfir, who rule the towering city of Spire...

Corey tells us about his campaign called Tales of the Undead which takes place in the island country of Equalia. This episode starts off with a reference to a video about Equalia that Corey uploaded to YouTube. For the full experience you can watch that video at this link: https://youtu.be/qFsqInICbAo?si=Vm9B5UVVjoJJm3ga Equalia was once ruled by an oppressive human regime. In the last few years a...

James tells us about Quelmar which is not just a campaign world but also a charity organization! Quelmar was created by James for his D&D games in college. Many more players joined the campaign swelling it in size and complexity as more and more PC backstories populated the lore of the world. James took the idea and ran with it, expanding Quelmar into a West-Marches style game with multiple DM...

Darin is back from Episode 11 to tell us more about Aellorah! Since we last spoke Darin has worked more on Aellorah's magic system called the Flow. There's plenty of new metals and special materials to make equipment out of. New classes and subraces abound. The governments of Aellorah are more detailed and fleshed out than before. Darin has created a lot more for his world and is own his way to ha...

Bryon tells us about his Vaesen game set in the Pacific Northwest during the Industrial Revolution. Vaesen is a Swedish RPG where the PCs possess the Second Sight and are able to see all the monsters and faeries of folklore and myth. The societal changes of the Industrial Revolution have upset the hidden creatures of the world. As humanity has expanded encounters between these creatures and humans...

Jack presents his arcanepunk world of Televyse. Televyse is a metropolis city on a plane made up of large hexagons of territory. Every month the hexagons rotate, destroying all life and structures on the previous hexagons and replacing them with something new. The hexagon Televyse is located on is the only one immune to the hexagon shift. The city center is the Dome where corporations host reality...

A special episode! A look at my own campaign with my players after the fact. This is a post session recording with my players and me after the conclusion of our D&D 4e campaign Orkish Rising. The campaign focused on the orc chief, Gregor, and his rise to power within the Orclands. He had to fight and unite tribes to oppose the evil necromancer tribes trying to take over the Orclands. At the en...

Tim's fantasy world of Alanui is recovering from an apocalypse that nearly wiped out all life. A small habitable region remains, surrounded by the Wall Wood which expands against the irradiated Wastes. The apocalypse was multifaceted, but strangely parts of it were erased from history and memory of all but a few by the Director, the leader of the peacekeeping force of Guardians. This erasure was a...

Matt tells us about his campaign set in the Pokemon world. Pokemon is split into different regions based off of real world areas. Matt's game is set in his own original region named Osee. based on Orange County in Southern California. Matt originally recorded his sessions to go back and listen to himself or with his group, but he reworked them into the Pokemon Osee Podcast . The game is played usi...

Tommy talks about his world of Oryn. The world was created with a lot of input from his players. This includes asking a question of the players at the start of each session to further develop the world and the PCs position within it. The PCs are exploring the world and have discovered the ruins of an ancient mind flayer empire. Tommy throws in lots of prophecies along with the players participatin...

Kernel walks us through the Final Lands. All the races of the world have huddled together on an island the size of Ireland. At the center of the Final Lands is a crystal tower called the Soul Forge. The tower is surrounded by a formidable wasteland that magically drains the life of travelers. Additionally, dragons live around the Soul Forge. Every two years a comet passes over head signaling the b...

Rob tells us about his world, Garou. We get a unique perspective for our podcast as Rob's campaign in Garou recently concluded. Garou is a single continent world where the landmass is shaped like an apple. The world is a dumping ground for the rest of the universe resulting in an odd mishmash of races and factions that do not fit the typical mold of fantasy worlds, resulting in them being dumped f...

Natowa/Michael tells us about his campaign world, Akrimyos. The magic of Akrimyos is a strange and mysterious thing with many different ways of accessing the flux, raw magic that exists throughout Akrimyos. Natowa uses the same names as many of the gods from the Forgotten Realms but with very different domains and personalities to make them his own. Akrimyos also includes a few science fiction ele...

OnslaughtSix tells us about his DMing style, his gaming products and his world, Aerda. Onslaught uses almost exclusively modules for DMing, but not in the traditional way. Instead of running a module or adventure path from start to finish, he takes bits and pieces from different modules to form a complete adventure of his own. We talked about his use of Curse of Strahd in this episode and there ar...

Kima tells us about his cyberpunk world. In the future after a nuclear apocalypse the survivors huddle together in separate cities with a nuclear wasteland in between. Kima focuses in on C-City which is ruled by the Datafield corporation. The datafield is a powerful WiFi-like network that surrounds the city. This allows for instantaneous transfer of information for those who are connected as well...

A special episode with the DM that taught me to play, John! When I was nine he ran us through a campaign he'd designed previously called Olnap. The name for Olnap is derived from the real-world map of OL ympic NA tional P ark that John used to design the campaign. In the campaign my friends and I rampaged across Olnap defeating monsters and solving problems that had come up due to the physical bre...

Alec walks us through the different Noman Empires in his world. Noss Farii is an imperial empire dominated by a restrictive theocracy. Hyrend is an atheist society where anything goes when it comes to magic, even necromancy. Brevtensa is a plutocratic wild west society where money is king and a plethora of different faiths thrive alongside each other. Outside of the three empires are the States of...

Garrett talked with me about his setting, Pyrim. Instead of being a whole world, Pyrim is a single city built on top of a dwarven mining town. A civil war was stopped in the town by four brave heroes, but it cost one of the heroes her life. To consecrate her resting place the remaining three heroes placed three blessings on Pyrim. Water always flows, crops always flourish, and no one can die in co...

Thesi tells us about his world of Saared, an archipelago surrounded by an impenetrable wall of water shooting up into the sky. Saared is ruled by the Terrace, a floating city that monopolizes all magic within the islands. The people of Saared have lost a strong connection to the gods, so they must rely on themselves to defeat the Terrace. A rebel organization known as Cloudfall opposes the Terrace...

Hayden and Carson joined me for a dual interview on their world called Egress. Egress is the name of the world and the god of the world. The world has a single continent that slopes downward from the sea towards a funnel in the middle. All creatures feel the Longing which pulls them into the funnel when they get to past their prime. The Longing is a defense mechanism against Chaos demons from outs...

Nathan introduces us to his world of Aenea, a world with a deep pool of lore thanks to Nathan's hard work on making a full world mod of Aenea for the Neverwinter Nights MMO game. Nathan first created Aenea while playing with his siblings. It grew into a enormous world on Neverwinter Nights. After the server crashed, Nathan revived the world to play D&D once more. Aenea itself has a set of two...

This week's guest is Sara. She's running her campaign using Savage Worlds in the world of Tamriel of the famous Elder Scrolls games. Sara's game is set between the events of Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall and Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. The game takes place in Western Cyrodil near the heart of the Empire. A bandit king in the hills has found the Poppy Crown, an artifact of Sheogorath that has driven...

This week I interviewed Kris about his campaign world, Veris. The world is ruled by a powerful king who made a deal with Lolth. A mythal was installed in the world that hid Veris from the gods' sight and prevented anyone from advancing in power beyond level 5. All except for the powerful king who claims control over the mighty Consequencers. However, the mythal that binds people to low levels is n...

This week I interviewed Darin about his campaign world of Aellorah. Aellorah's cosmology has only seven celestial bodies and no stars besides the central sun. Four planets orbit the sun and two moons orbit the main planet of Aellorah. There are seven goddesses for each of the celestial bodies and each of the planets has seven races on them for each of the goddesses. Aellorah, the main planet, has...